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Warrior builds
Warrior builds provides an overview of many warrior talent builds. The warrior talents allow specialization for damage dealing, both PvP and PvE, as well as tanking. The three warrior talent trees are Arms, Fury and Protection. Traditionally, players using two-handed weapons have focused on the Arms tree in order to obtain Mortal Strike, which can be very useful in PvP where burst damage is sometimes sufficient to eliminate the comparatively low health of enemy players. In instances and raids, the mobs and bosses have much higher health, and a dual-wielding Fury build is most frequently used for maximum DPS over time. Protection, finally, is the tank tree: main tanks will put most, if not all, of their talent points here. Warrior builds are often characterized by one or more "key talents", i.e., "Mortal Strike," "Bloodthirst," or "Shield Slam." Players select a key talent and structure their build around it in order to maximize its usefulness. More sophisticated or experienced players may select talents they find most useful in specific contexts, such as arena battles, solo questing, grinding, five-man instances or raiding. Popular Level 70 Builds There are many individual and sometimes eccentric talent builds, and a convincing case could probably be made for each and every one of them. What gels with one player's style may seem clumsy and ineffective to another. Some builds, however, have a more general appeal and are duplicated so frequently that some refer to them as "cookie cutter builds." The Armory makes it possible to ascertain the most popular builds for level 70 warriors. The following data is provided by Kurushiro of The Build Mine and Okoloth of Armory Musings and is up to date as of the July 27, 2007. At level 70, 46 per cent of warriors specialize primarily in Protection, 39 per cent specialize in Arms, and 15 per cent specialize in Fury. Popular Arms Builds Among the Arms builds, the combination of Mortal Strike and Flurry using a slow two-handed weapon is the most popular build, breaking down generally as (31/30/0). Arguably the strongest PvP builds, and the second-most popular build for level 70 wariors, combine Mortal Strike with Flurry like this. This template contains all the important talents, although occasionally the points invested in Improved Execute, Piercing Howl and Weapon Mastery are spent in Fury to customize the build. Likewise, some players find, in PvP, that Flurry is superior to other Arms talents, which tend to be geared towards PvE play. For example: a (33/28/0) build sacrifices two points in Flurry to gain either Blood Frenzy, a very useful PvE talent, or Second Wind, an equally useful PvP talent. Yet whether Second Wind is indeed worth the reduced probability for Flurry in the PvP context deserves careful consideration. Furthermore, depending on the intended purpose, some fine-tuning takes place, such as trading Iron Will for Improved Charge and Improved Thunder Clap. Two other popular builds, are the (41/20/0) which includes some of the new high tier Arms talents brought in by the Burning Crusade expansion, and the (36/25/0) which uses Slam as one of its key talents. This is a PvP-oriented build which focuses on being able to kill a wide variety of classes in a fair one-on-one fight, while still doing decent DPS in PvE. The advantages of this latter build is the high DPS when using Slam, especially with the slowest two-handed weapons. Proper usage of the Slam rotation takes some learning effort, however. (A note on Slam: When fighting people running in circles, spinning around to face them will not cancel out Slam. It takes some getting used to, but after being accustomed to the Slam Rotation, it's simply great. Be warned, Slamming and missing by facing the wrong way will still take Rage.) One thing to remember in all Arms builds is to choose the weapon specialization talent according to the weapon most frequently used by the warrior. In theory all three specializations are similar, with Mace Specialization theoretically geared towards PvP, since bosses are often immune to stun. Unfortunately, stun effects have been recently nerfed in PvP too, which leads many to believe that Mace Specialization is inferior to the other weapon specializations. Popular Fury Builds The most popular Fury build is focused on DPS and breaks down as ( 17/44/0). While this build is configured for PvE, with a few changes to the Arms tree it can become PvP friendly. Some such variations include transferring points from Improved Whirlwind to Piercing Howl; taking Improved Berserker Rage instead of Improved Execute; and trading points in Iron Will for Improved Overpower. The builds resulting from this template are sometimes dubbed "RiPs" or "rippers," derived from the phrase "rogues in plate," since their damage-dealing potential is close to rogues though their survivability is higher. Popular Protection Builds Close to seven per cent of all level 70 warriors use variants of a 8/5/48 template for a Protection build, making it the most popular point distribution of all. The basic pattern is to distribute 54 points like this. Warriors built on this template are specialized for group PvE and are versatile tanks, but are less than optimal for solo PvE or PvP. The remaining seven points are most frequently spent elsewhere in the Protection tree. The most popular variations take Improved Defensive Stance and Improved Shield Wall. Warriors tanking five- or 10-man instances often take Improved Revenge and Improved Shield Bash, but warriors tanking 25-man instances often find that the mobs are immune to these talents and choose accordingly. Many warriors also choose not to take Improved Thunder Clap (5/5/51) or Cruelty (8/0/53), and instead use the freed talent points for Protection talents. Both of these talents are useful in many contexts, however, and one should always consider whether the extra Protection talents are worth their loss. A final popular variation is to also take Improved Heroic Strike or Anger Management, both found in the Arms tree. This variant gives warriors more opportunities to add a layer of Heroic Strikes to their threat-ability rotation, thus maximizing threat per second. Other Level 70 Builds Arms Ultimate Arena Build With the emergence of the patch 2.3, a new pvp build have been noticed to be far superior in arenas. This build (45-5-11) gives far superior durability and higher burst damage than other builds due to warriors all being left being kited or cc’ed. Tactical Mastery allows warriors to stance dance when encountering that rogue/druid/hunter that is waiting to be overpowered and switch back to Berserker Stance to intercept another target. The choice of weapon mastery is totally up to the warrior, it is more beneficial for warriors to go Mace Spec if they have Deep Thunder or Stormherald as of the recent nerf to Mace Spec stun proccing 2-3% less. Sword Spec warriors have more burst damage, as most warriors tend to spam hamstring, they benefit more from the extra swing that can proc from hamstring spam. Improved Hamstring lets warriors stop runners dead on their tracks, literally. Toughness give an extra 10% armor gives allows warriors to take more physical damage and Last Stand gives warriors the flexibility of awaiting that critical moment for a big heal to hit after getting Presence of Mind/Pyroblast or avoid executes and Hammer of Wrath. The downside of this build is that it is not as practical in Battlegrounds due to the long cool down of Last Stand and Death Wish. Other significant losses are improved shouts (Commanding Presence), enrage and in some cases flurry. The loss of enrage if not as significant due to resilience, Death Wish no longer stacks with enrage and Warriors are seldom zerged in arena fights, especially in 5v5. However the benefit gained from Endless Rage outweighs the loss of flurry to generate enough rage to use improved Mortal Strike every 5 seconds. Raelor's Build #none| This build was created by Raelor of Duskwood and breaks down as (42/17/2). It is designed for a slow, two-hand axe or polearm Arms build, yet also incorporates talents from the Fury and Protection trees that any warrior would find useful. It is more useful in PvE or raiding to maximize damage output, but not as much in PvP because it skips the Iron Will, Second Wind, and Enrage skills. The build utilizes Improved Slam which is very useful in raiding for boss damage, though rage intensive. In order to maximize rage gain, Anger Management, Unbridled Wrath, and Improved Bloodrage are included. At level 80, one will also have access to Endless Rage. This build's creator also likes Poleaxe Specialization because of the increased crit chance, which helps a lot during soloing. But other weapon specializations have their uses and are competitive. For example: a Mace Specialization crit proccing an extra attack which also crits will yield a huge burst of damage, though again the appeal of Mace Specialization is limited due to bosses' stun invulnerability. Similarly, a Whirlwind could proc extra attacks on each of its targets, again yielding extreme damage output. Orcane's Arms/Fury Warrior This build's main function is cause as much damage as possible using two-handed weapons, preferably an axe or polearm because of the five per cent crit bonus. It is broken down as (36/22/3) and is a very good PvP build due to its versatility and high damage output. Every talent is chosen to increase DPS and survivability. With this spec, Berserker Stance will be used most of the time, battle stance only when extra extra armor is needed, or Overpower needs to be used. Overpower is an important ability with the big, slow 2H. To fight efficiently in Battle or Berserker stance, against a warlock or priest, immunity to fear is needed. In berserker stance, Berserker Rage is available, in Berserker and Battle Stance it's Death Wish. The latter does increase damage taken, but substantially increases damage dealt, so it's a nice talent overall. Improved Demoralizing Shout is a very controversial talent because it seems as though it has limited use; this is completely false!!! It can cause every single melee class to cause so much less damage it isn't even funny. In the arena, one of the most common teams is Warrior/Paladin, both melee classes. By using demoralizing shout, you can seriously hamper their damage output. In this build, as much rage as possible should be used for Mortal Strike, Overpower, Death Wish, Hamstring, and shouts. Shouts are probably the most underrated aspect of warriors and used effectively can change the entire course of a battle. Excess rage can be dumped with Whirlwind and Cleave. Another underrated talent is Sweeping Strikes. In PvP/arena it is very effective but is difficult to use (especially in open PvP; IE: Eye of the Storm, Alterac Valley, etc). In the Arena however (especially 2v2 and 3v3), it's amazingly effectively if your partner(s) are intelligent and of the right class. If you are teamed with all melee classes, stay close together and use sweeping strikes so that basically all your attacks do double damage. It's not advisable to use this tactic when paired with a ranged damage dealer, though. Xxshadow's Arms Build This build, divided as (41/10/10), is made to deal massive damage with polearms and two-handed axes, and gives warriors plenty of rage to use for Mortal Strike. It also does not require much shifting between stances and will remain useable for warriors throughout most of their career, until they are ready to switch to tanking for high-level instances. Krandoth's Notes on Arms Builds First off, the first two and fourth builds are all absolutely awful, and the third is sub-par. If you want to go arms for PvE (warning, do not do this if you don't have an attack time bar and good timing), the correct build is this. Minor changes, such as improved demo shout for unbridled wrath (though I'd recommend that at least one warrior in the raid have at least 2/5 imp demo), weapon mastery for improved slam, improved intercept for improved disciplines, or sword spec for axe spec, are all fine. For PvP, you have to choose whether you want a build with flurry or not - if you want flurry, a build like this is what you should be going for. As before minor changes are fine - iron will to whatever else in the first two tiers, booming voice to unbridled wrath or imp demo, blood craze to commanding presence, mace spec to sword spec (though I should note that I think maces are generally the best PvP weapons) - don't even consider axes unless you're an orc. If you do want tactical mastery - giving up damage for extra flexibility in use of abilities outside of berserker stance - the build I would suggest is here. Again, minor changes are fine - the ones mentioned before and 1 from 2h spec/1 from imp hamstring to imp execute. On a side note - paladins are not a melee class, you won't be doing arena with a team of all melee classes, and you aren't less likely to gain enrage with higher resilience, endless rage is definately worse than flurry, don't even consider a PvE arms build without flurry and improved slam, it's impossible to get endless rage and improved slam at the same time, and warriors definately do get attacked (or zerged as it was said above) in arena often. Fury Iwontpku(Ursin)'s Max DPS This build, broken into (17/41/3), is a simple variant of the basic Fury build. Eques' Maximum Solo PvE build This build (26/35/0) is specifically designed for using an one-handed axe in the main hand and off-hand. It is a useful build for killing multiple mobs without losing health too quickly. Indeed, if properly executed this build permits warriors to easily handle at least three non-elite mobs on your own without using potions! This build also provides a substantial crit chance to keep Flurry active at almost all times. The optimal means of using this build is through the following procedure: (1) Charge a mob. With Improved Charge one will have the necessary rage to (2) use Improved Thunderclap and to (3) use Improved Demoralizing Shout. Once this is done (4) spam with Heroic Strikes and Bloodthirst, or (5) Sweeping Strikes if facing multiple enemies. Dubh's Leveling Spec This leveling spec, (13/43/5), is based on doing damage fast and hard, without being too reliant on bandages and food. With Blood Craze and Blood Thirst it is possible to keep a warrior's life high enough that one can pull many times in a row without needing to rest, thereby speeding up the leveling process. This build works especially nicely with the Mark of Conquest, since its heal proc rate is actually quite high. The optimal means of using this build is through the following procedure: (1) Charge a mob, (2) use Demoralizing Shout and Thunderclap, then (3) switch to Berserker Stance. If presented with the opportunity to use Rampage and Overpower, then do so. If it becomes necessary to heal, use an Intimidating Shout and bandage, then run a short distance from the mob and use Intercept. If this fails attempt to use Piercing Howl. Slayer's 2H DPS Build This build, (5/45/11), focuses on generating maximum DPS with a two-handed weapon. Rogue in Plate This build, (17/44/0), makes the warrior like a rogue, dealing bursts of damage, lots of criticals, bleedings, and bonuses in attack power and attack speed. In many situations the original rogues loses the first position in final DPS to rogues-in-plates. And rogues-in-plate takes advantage in reduction of melee damage taken. Rogues-in-plate always use two one-handed weapons, almost daggers or fast swords (needs to be a fast weapon, for two things: generates more rage per second and you often "push-down" spell casts). The rage pool of rogues-in-plates has a high grow, making possible the constant use of habilities, such Heroic Strike, Hamstring, Pummel and Sunder Armor, and very high final damage in Execute. Search for Critical Strike Rating, Agility, Strenght, Stamina, Attack Power attributes in itens. Fury Tier 5 gives all this attributes, and combined with some good itens, can let rogue-in-plate with 31% of critical, and final DPS of 1200. Gonthor's Angry Shouting Warrior http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LVMczZExzA0xoiuVoc This build (11/47/3) is frowned upon by some, but excels for many warriors, especially those who enjoy using their AoE shouts in tandem with whirling blades of death. This build skips out on the Unbridled Wrath talent, instead opting for Improved Demoralizing Shout. Also, both Booming Voice and Cruelty are taken. Finally, as a somewhat sacrificial choice, Improved Dual Wielding is skipped, in order to obtain Improved Charge, a staple for any warrior, and Improved Thunder Clap, which can combine with Improved Demoralizing Shout to make those mobs hit like kittens. Through this tree, it becomes easier to obtain rage in many ways, which can then be used for shouting. This build is quite unique, and one would be hard-pressed to find a large amount of warriors who use it, but for those who enjoy their shouting and the effects that come with it, this build is stellar. Protection Tree Mike's Tanking Build (Improved Charge / Tactical Mastery) This build breaks down as ( 10/5/46) and is an example of a customized variation of the basic build. It enables warriors to pull a lot of aggro right off the bat, which can be difficult for warriors since their abilities require time to build up rage. This build works best when a warrior uses a two-handed weapon to Charge, thereby generating a lot of rage, then dropping into Defensive Stance, equipping a one-handed weapon and shield and then executing all of the warrior's high-threat attacks. Due to this strategy's complexity it helps to have a mod which automatically switches weapons when switching stances. Improved Revenge, Improved Sunder Armor, and Shield Mastery are all interchangeable, and any two out of the three may be taken depending on style of play. Wolfcradle's Multiple Mob Tanking Build This build (8/12/41) is made for main tanking with specific emphasis on the "weak spot" of warrior tanks: namely, multiple-mob tanking. To better take and keep the aggro of multiple mobs this build sports Improved Thunder Clap and Improved Cleave, while also using Unbridled Wrath in order to obtain rage early into a fight. Stun moves, such as Improved Revenge and Concussion Blow, also help when trying to keep multiple mobs under control. Josh's Main Tanking Warrior Build http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0cZVZbEtohMdMest - This build has everything you could possibly want as tanking instances and heroics to tanking raids. You have the 5 points into Deflection for the 5% chance to Parry which can help a great amount, full into Improved Thunder Clap to get a nice amount of threat and slow down your enemies attack speed. The 5 points into Cruelty gives you an extra 5% chance to crit because the more you crit, the more threat you gain, the more rage you have. As for the Protection tree, you can change Focused Rage for Tactical Mastery or any other place if you dont think that you will really need the 3 rage off your threat gaining melee attacks. Also, the only stun you will want is Concussion Blow because it leads to getting Shield Slam, you most likely wont want Improved Revenge because stunning enemies as a Warrior isnt the greatest thing, it will make you miss out on taking damage rage, and using Revenge alot as a tank builds alot of threat and you cant stun bosses so the Improved Revenge isnt worth it. Tank build with Anger Management This tanking build (12/5/44) has Anger Management (20 rage per minute) and Improved Bloodrage for increased rage gain. Included are Improved Heroic Strike and Improved Thunderclap, as well as Focused Rage to decrease the rage cost of Devastate to 9 rage, and Heroic Strike and Thunder Clap to 9 rage and 13 rage respectively. Aggro gain is increased from a typical 8/5/48 build, and mitigation is gained too, but the 6% magic reduction from Improved Defensive Stance is lost. However, since tanks normally take more physical damage than magic, I prefer it this way. Hybrid Hybrid Protection Build This build, (19/11/31), mixes some damage dealing abilities with the most important Protection talents, namely Shield Slam, which is one of the most important aggro-generating and damage-dealing abilities. This build is not best used by main tanks, but it will serve well enough as tank in most 5-man instances or for off-tanking while still dealing decent DPS. Fury/Protection This 5/41/15 is an alternative hybrid build that focuses primarily on the Fury tree to provide strong offensive abilities while at the same time points invested in Protection tree allow better damage mitigation and increased threat in tanking role. This build also generates threat better than Arms/Protection build because of increased damage due to Flurry and Enrage proc effects. Rage generation is also one more strong side of this build because it grants access to both Unbridled Wrath and Shield Specialization. Casual Fury/Tank 13/34/14 This hybrid build This hybrid build is for those who like to solo grind, instance DPS when they can, and tank when needed. There's a lot of wiggle room to mix and match your favorite lower tier talents, but the deep tree core choices are Anger Management/Imp Overpower, Bloodthirst/Precision, and Defiance/Last Stand. Protection/PvP "Stunlock" Build 35/0/26 This is a rather obscure build based on the philosophy that you will take less damage if your enemies are unable to attack you. The build focuses on all the stuns possible for a warrior including the Mace Stun, Improved Revenge, and Concussion Blow, as well as other talents to reduce the efficiency of the target such as Improved Hamstring, Improved Shield Bash, and Improved Disarm. The build includes Mortal Strike instead of Shield Slam because I feel that the 50% healing debuff is much more brutal to enemies in the long run than a chance to remove a buff from the target. The warrior is meant to be in defensive stance for most of the time to maximize use of revenge, especially now that it has had its damage upped significantly in the last patch. Finally, you should find a good one-handed mace to wield because of the mace specialization stun talent. Being a blacksmith with hammersmith specialization doesn't hurt. Meecrob's Impale Tank Build 19/5/37 This is a great OT spec for guys that will be doing more than just tanking. It will put out DPS within 10% or less that of Dual Wield Fury with similar gear. With the Shaman Windfury Totem nerf, this build will probably come out very high on DPS. The real strength of this build is rage efficiency and spammable Heroic Strikes. You also have to figure a flat 10% damage boost across the board with 1h spec. Battle stance is the only stance used when soloing, swapping out between dual wield and shield depending on the mob. When in groups and not tanking, stay in Battle Stance if you want the benefit of Improved Overpowers (more likely to happen when dual wielding) or go Beserker for the crit boost. Alpha's tank dps build (0/21/40) This build is made for tanking, but also being able to do damage. Since Devastate is not needed to tank, I took it out and replaced it with a move to help in the arenas, Death Wish. To tank, pile sunders then sheild slam, heroic strike, and revenge. Don't forget to shield block! this build is also very hard to take out in arenas because you have death wish and last stand, which will make you killer. Swich to a shield if you see a caster, cause if you are in battle stance, you get tospell lock them with spell reflect, shield bash, and concussion blow. note: since patch 2.3, deathwish was moved to Arms for Sweeping Strikes, the use for this spec has changed. Deathwish/Shield Slam This build (21/5/35) came up with moving deathwish to arms and the new Zul'Aman drops with lots of block value in 2.3, its simply an advancement to the impale tank build which allows for you to hit shield slams as hard (if not harder) than a typical Bloodthirst or Mortal strike (some crit over 3000 on average), getting the Gnomeregan Autoblocker from heroic badges is highly recomended. Deathwish is also useful as a tank since it can be used in defensive stance. Points can be moved in arms and prot to make it more pve friendly as well. Karlen's Silly Build (31/5/25) A pre Burning Crusade build, the idea was that I would be able to do alot of damage soloing, be able to take sevral enemies at once thanks to Sweeping Strikes, yet still be able to tank respectably. At the time however, I was usually just an off-tank, but have since risen to be my guild's primary Main Tank. I haven't tried this spec in TBC yet, as I switched to a more conventional Prot spec for pure tanking. The disadvantage of this spec related to my current one is the lack of Shield Slam and Devastate, two attacks I use almost dependantly while tanking. The hypothesis now, is that with gear up to the task, this build would be usable in Burning Crusade level raids. All that remains is to test the hypothesis. MS/Concusion Blow (35/5/21) This build is like what Karlen was close too, but since the move of Deathwish and improved Intercept to Arms in 2.3 made it so some warriors no longer need to drop their points into fury like a 35/23/3 build. Some would call this the best of both worlds since its one of the only builds that can support a warrior in any situation since it has major tanking talents like defiance and toughness. Also note that this is mace spec, with concusion blow as well (and even improved revenge if you wanted it), it can be considered a stun-lock spec for pvp. note for pvpers: shared stuns on diminishing returns are charge, intercept, improved revenge, concusion blow and mace stun... so its wise to use concusion on a new target for the full 5 sec effect The Semi-Tough (0/30/31) The purpose of this build is to enable a warrior to tank when needed, while maintaining enough damage to solo and quest without frustration. It is designed for the warrior who quests regularly and tanks regularly, but who doesn't want to spend a great deal on respecs—like the tank who seeks to buy an epic flying mount, or grind Netherwing reputation. It therefore focuses on white damage, seeking to milk as much out the stackable One-Handed Weapon Specialization and Dual Wield Specialization, while giving the warrior access to both full Flurry and Shield Slam. It is useful chiefly to warriors who use one handed weapon, and is meant to allow for easy transition between dual wielding and main hand plus shield. It is a very un-fiddly, un-bursty build: it lacks Death Wish and Rampage, and the only self-buff the warrior needs to maintain is Battle Shout. Level 80 Builds Akatsume's Flurry Fury Tanky Build The Flurry Fury Tanky Build is a build expected to bring very interesting results for a warrior who spends time both tanking middle-end dungeons/raids and questing. This build is intended for experienced warriors who master their tanking and off-tanking abilities, considering it doesn't offer any "peripherical" skills such as Improved Revenge or Improved Taunt that definitly help aggro and mobs management. Althouh, it offers a higher DPS output for the tank, and a definitly considerable dual-wielding DPS output with very good resistance for questing / grinding. Finally, with both 5p-Flurry and 3p-Focused Rage now available altogether for Level 80s, we can now hope for very fast aggro builders as well as deadly tanks for tanking duties! Level 60 builds * Warrior Builds pre-TBC External links Official Website's Warrior Page Official Website's Warrior Forum Fortifications: A Warrior Reference Guide Shows various builds focused more on the Protection tree. Category:Guides Category:Warriors Category:Talents Category:Warrior Talents